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One of the best parts of the original trilogy was watching West and Ninefingers be brutally beaten down by the nonstop violence and vengeance while still coming out "human" (well, maybe not so much for Ninefingers...). Too many characters in The Heroes seemed to have existed just to be murdered or emotionally destroyed.

I will say one thing the character arcs for the trilogy is seriously the strangest ive ever read where you hate a few of the characters especially that annoying prick one, really love the characters by the second book, and then really hate there actions in the third book. The only consistent one was Glockta I think his name is.

As for the second point kind of feeling a little bit like that with this book where the characters go through a bit to much heart wrenching stuff.

I will say one thing the character arcs for the trilogy is seriously the strangest ive ever read where you hate a few of the characters especially that annoying prick one, really love the characters by the second book, and then really hate there actions in the third book. The only consistent one was Glockta I think his name is.

As for the second point kind of feeling a little bit like that with this book where the characters go through a bit to much heart wrenching stuff.

Yeah, it kind of says something that the closest things the original trilogy had to heroes were West and Glokta (and maybe Dogman, but he wasn't given a major focus).

West: A decorated military officer who ends up murdering his own prince and basically becoming a blood knight so terrifying that even the northern barbarians are kind of weirded out.
Glokta: A cripple who takes joy in freaking out everyone around him and who tortures people for a living

Everyone else was either a selfish prick (Jezal), dead (may not be mutually exclusive with the rest of these...), or showed their true colors (Ninefingers and a certain someone else).

I think that is why I really like Abercrombie's work. He is definitely a product of the Martin school of thought, but rather than having a story with dark elements (where most of them can be removed without hurting the narrative too much) he just goes off the deep end with the grimdark despair and ultraviolence (if memory serves, in Ninefingers's first actual fight scene he basically liquifies a ninja with a door). Can be painful to read at times, but overall a good read.

Speaking of, if you like the "Protagonist who may be worse than the antagonists" school of dark fantasy, give The Acts of Caine a shot. The first book is "Heroes Die" and can be summed up with one of my favorite quotes in "literature": "Fuck the city, I'd burn the whole world to save her" and all the implications and consequences that come with that.
The premise is actually sci-fi (in the future, we find a way to teleport to a separate dimension that is basically The Forgotten Realms. We then send highly trained reality TV stars over to go on adventures. Yeah...). Stover actually does some REALLY interesting things with the concept (although, later books get pretty weird and complicated) and definitely studies the various tropes of fantasy and examines the consequences (the second book can be described as "What happens the day after Die Hard"), but I love them.

And Caine is definitely a bigger homicidal maniac than even Ninefingers. It says something that, to establish his rival as being the worse option, said rival gets a viewpoint chapter where he imagines breaking into a house, tying up the mother/wife and father/husband, raping the mother, raping the husband, murdering them both, then adopting their daughter and raising her in a manner to instill an Elektra Complex so that she will later give herself willingly to him... Yeah... Holy shit was Berne fucked up... Yet Stover also manages to make you root for Caine because of who and what he is, rather than just as "he is the lesser of the evils". Which kind of says a lot.

Steam: Gundato
PSN: Gundato
If you want me on either service, I suggest PMing me here first to let me know who you are.

just finished reading The Ocean at the end of the lane. A quick review I gave to a friend:

pretty good, the story was just fantastical enough to be interesting while still feeling real, it felt a bit like a young adult/teenagers book but some of the points it makes can really only be appreciated by an adult.
It was also a wee bit short, but that's probably a non issue.

It actually made me a bit uncomfortable ( though I imagine that was the point), the way the book seemed so much like a truth, so close to being a memory, but in particular the scene's with the [spoilers] choking by his farther, as well as the infidelity [/spoilers] felt deeply unsettling.

That said, it's the first book I've read in like three years, and the others books were Catch-22, and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Series, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku. It it's half as good as his talks I'm in for a treat as I'm always up for listening to what someone who built an atom smasher in his garage in highschool has to say about the world.

I hate reading. The last book that I bought that I am STILL *trying* to read is....I actually forgot the title. And the book is wedged in a pile of clothes in my cabinet. Gotta sort the clothes and find the book. It's not that I don't like the book....I just don't have the time. The last book I read was Harry Potter 7 and it took me months to read it cuz I work a lot but I loved the book. Unless the book is REALLY good, I don't like reading. I love reading books that are thrilling, relatable, true story, inspirational, etc.

I hate reading. The last book that I bought that I am STILL *trying* to read is....I actually forgot the title. And the book is wedged in a pile of clothes in my cabinet. Gotta sort the clothes and find the book. It's not that I don't like the book....I just don't have the time. The last book I read was Harry Potter 7 and it took me months to read it cuz I work a lot but I loved the book. Unless the book is REALLY good, I don't like reading. I love reading books that are thrilling, relatable, true story, inspirational, etc.

If you're fishing for suggestions, do try to give some indication that they won't be wasted on a lazy moron.

If you're fishing for suggestions, do try to give some indication that they won't be wasted on a lazy moron.

Nah, I never ask for suggestions. I already know what kind of books I like. Question is: when I will I buy them and actually read them. I'm not lazy. I work for a living. There's lots of people in the world who inspire people and hate reading books. Books aren't the only material a person can read from.

I used to dislike reading books. I found them difficult to concentrate on, I'd constantly be forgetting peoples names and their actions a page after the event. So I stopped for a few years. Decided to try get into it again and picked up The Left Hand of God and The Painted Man (Warded Man in other regions). Neither are going to win a pulitzer, but they where both enjoyable and didn't have the same issues as other books I tried to read. Fewer characters, given longer introductions and having unique names.

I try get through a book every month or two now. Like you I'm rather busy, I've a lot of hobbies and I can't speed read. Still going through Children of Fire. If you're in any way a fan of Mass Effect or KOTORS story I suggest giving it a try. It's by Drew Karpyshyn who wrote those stories (but not mass effect 3 before someone comes along and complains about the trilogy because of the ending).

"Halo is designed to make the player think "I look like that, I am macho sitting in my undies with my xbox""

I hate reading. The last book that I bought that I am STILL *trying* to read is....I actually forgot the title. And the book is wedged in a pile of clothes in my cabinet. Gotta sort the clothes and find the book.

Give it a try one day, preferably starting fresh. Can only benefit you.

Holy shit but they're sexist and racist, just wow. The new film of Casino Royale is definitely better.

Goldfinger is the worst example of this. In the novel, Pussy Galore is a lesbian because she was sexually abused by her uncle as a child. Until Bond comes along and "cures" her by virtue of being incredibly manly.

Fleming isn't a bad writer per se, but his bigotry made it impossible for me to enjoy his work.

Yeah, it kind of says something that the closest things the original trilogy had to heroes were West and Glokta (and maybe Dogman, but he wasn't given a major focus).

I think Jezal was a hero! I quite liked that he started out as an insufferable prick and actually tried to get better. I mean, if not for being completely outmaneuvered by someone he had no hope of competing against (Bayaz) he'd have made quite a good king, I think. His heart drifts closer to the right place as the book goes on. He surprised me the most out of any of the cast, since I saw Glokta's arc coming a mile off and well.... even if he's the main character of the universe, I just don't like Logen. I think he's dull as fuck.

I didn't really see Abercrombies world as Grimdark so much as black comedy, it sets up all these stories of redemption and heroism and then stolidly refuses to follow them through. The best example of this is probably Shivers [spoilers] He leaves the First Law trilogy sick of barbarism and violence, after realizing that maybe Logan isn't quite the monster he's portrayed as and decides that fuck it, maybe he can rise above vengeance and become a better person in a more civilized society. Except, as it turns out, trying to be a better person leaves him in an even worse situation and that 'civilized' really just means the people are less honest about their violent tendencies. He ends up basically becoming the worst version of himself, from trying to be a better man

I didn't really see Abercrombies world as Grimdark so much as black comedy, it sets up all these stories of redemption and heroism and then stolidly refuses to follow them through. The best example of this is probably Shivers [spoilers] He leaves the First Law trilogy sick of barbarism and violence, after realizing that maybe Logan isn't quite the monster he's portrayed as and decides that fuck it, maybe he can rise above vengeance and become a better person in a more civilized society. Except, as it turns out, trying to be a better person leaves him in an even worse situation and that 'civilized' really just means the people are less honest about their violent tendencies. He ends up basically becoming the worst version of himself, from trying to be a better man

Abercrombie is definitely a dark comic author. To the extent that I think the most effective dark and sad story he's yet told was of the children in Red Country. Everything else is generally so overamped as to be absurd, but theirs was... real, in a way he often downplays.

The first book is DEFINITELY very rough (Russel is basically a "I'ma gonna rape everyone" villain) and his action sequences were rather "meh". Plus, the damsel in distress thing was REALLY lame. But I really liked the premise and the backstory/exposition convinced me to read to the second book which was a lot better. And now I am on the third and have to say, he hit his stride.

In a nutshell: Aliens visited Earth and built a space elevator over Darwin, Australia. They also unleashed a plague that turns people into "subs" (think the Rage-Virus zombies from the 28 Days/Weeks Later series), and the space elevator makes an aura that keeps the virus in stasis. The primary viewpoint character of the first book is an Immune who, along with his crew, flies outside of the aura to scavenge for supplies and shoot "subs". The rest of the series is about figuring out what the aliens were actually doing while adapting to the changing conditions (pretty early on in the first book, people inside the aura start transforming into "subs").

Steam: Gundato
PSN: Gundato
If you want me on either service, I suggest PMing me here first to let me know who you are.

On a whim, I purchased the Forerunner Trilogy by Greg Bear for Kindle (at £1.50 for the first book it was worth a punt, not £7 for the paper version)- I'm not really into books based on games series but I've been really enjoying them. Because they don't have to use the one dimensional Master Chief character, it really freed it up. The settings and the characters are good, and much like Mass Effect 3 did with the Protheans, it reveals the Forerunners aren't the super-wonderful space angels the games imply them to be. The only downside is because the book takes place across a long time span, it sometimes makes leaps and you have to re-read a section to work out where you are in the scheme of things. It'd actually be interesting to see a Halo game based in that timeline. And see them on PC as well but one thing at a time.

On a whim, I purchased the Forerunner Trilogy by Greg Bear for Kindle (at £1.50 for the first book it was worth a punt, not £7 for the paper version)- I'm not really into books based on games series but I've been really enjoying them. Because they don't have to use the one dimensional Master Chief character, it really freed it up. The settings and the characters are good, and much like Mass Effect 3 did with the Protheans, it reveals the Forerunners aren't the super-wonderful space angels the games imply them to be. The only downside is because the book takes place across a long time span, it sometimes makes leaps and you have to re-read a section to work out where you are in the scheme of things. It'd actually be interesting to see a Halo game based in that timeline. And see them on PC as well but one thing at a time.

If you've any interest in Mass Effect the first 3 books are decent reads. Not ground breaking. The first is the best because it has Captain Anderson. The next two are good and they tie some of those characters that just kinda popped up in ME3 into the universe.

The first two Dragon Age books aren't bad either.

"Halo is designed to make the player think "I look like that, I am macho sitting in my undies with my xbox""